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Talk:Fictional Baseball Teams in The House of Daniel
Cataloging these could be either charming or tedious. We'd also need to decide whether the analogs of the Negro League teams are pro or semi-pro. Historians of the real-world game are divided on this point. :We could add a third top-heading of "Negro League Teams" to avoid that decision. ML4E (talk) 19:00, July 27, 2018 (UTC) ::I'm not comfortable with segregating the Negro Leagues. :::I can see the difficulty with this now and don't object to the Negro League teams being considered pros, as per the discussion below. ML4E (talk) 15:29, July 28, 2018 (UTC) ::From what I can tell based on snap research, I think the view that the Negro Leagues were professional is winning, or has won, out. TR (talk) :::I come down on that side too. The best of their teams could play at a level comparable with the best teams in MLB at the time, despite access to far fewer resources. :::The problem is, very, very few of the players were actually able to make a living at it. Of course, there weren't all that many MLB players who didn't need winter side jobs in the 30s. Even today, it's pretty hard to live a whole year off the average income in a minor league contract within organized baseball, and that's still a professional league. (Or leagues, rather.) Turtle Fan (talk) 07:08, July 28, 2018 (UTC) ::::But they were salaried for the most part, which just barely covers the base line for professionalism. As you say, even now, unambiguous major league pros have a side-hustle. TR (talk) 15:14, July 28, 2018 (UTC) :::::Major leaguers today who have a side hustle are examples of the rich getting richer. Maybe they aspire to the owners' levels of wealth, heights which Nolan Ryan and Derek Jeter have both scaled in recent years. Otherwise, you'd have to live pretty damn lavishly to exhaust MLB's minimum salary within a calendar year, though it could be done. I suppose one could exhaust a Boras-negotiated mega-contract in a year, too, but I wouldn't want to see what that looked like. (I wouldn't mind trying it, though.) Turtle Fan (talk) 00:42, July 29, 2018 (UTC) :::I think it boils down to what sort of compensation package the players received. Remember, the semi-pro team players received money too. From the story, they were paid on a per game basis, with popular barnstorming teams like HoD getting a cut of the gate. Meantime, the players in the majors or the associated minors were salaried for the season and so had a fixed pay scale. The semi-pro players, in town leagues and the like, had baseball as the side hustle while the players in the majors may have had to have an off season side hustle (including barnstorming) to make ends meet. ML4E (talk) 18:11, July 29, 2018 (UTC) ::::Good point. That seems like such an obvious definition once you lay it out, that in hindsight I'm amazed I entertained any other. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:42, July 30, 2018 (UTC) The Archdeacons--You know, I remember wishing HT had just called them the Gashouse Gang and left it at that. Sometimes I think he's a bit too slavishly formulaic in his punny conventions. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:56, July 27, 2018 (UTC)